MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume I, Issue 34, 31 May 1845, Page 1

MISCELLANEOUS.

American Wool Trade. — According to the best calculations, says Mr. Williams, in his address on the tariff, it is supposed that there are about 34,000,000 of sheep in the United States, worth, on the average, about two dollars per head, and yield about 90,000,000 lbs. of wool, worth, at 30 cents, per lb., about 27,000,000 dollars. These sheep at three to the acre for summer and winter, would require 11,333,333 acres of land for their support, which, at 1 2 dollars per acre, which is considered a fair average, would be worth 136,000,000 dollars. To mar nufacture this clip of wool would require about 45,000 hands, who, with families .averaging three persons each, and amounting in all to 180,000, at a consumption of 25 dollars per annum each, would require 4,500,000 dollars worth of agricultural products for their support, which, at a nett yield of 2 dollars 50 cents, per acre for the market, would require 1,800,000 acres of land, worth, at 12 dollars per acre, 21 ,600,000. The capital invested, then, by the farmer in this business alone, is about 225,000,000 dollars, and the annual value accruing to him, about 41,500,000 dollars, while the capital invested by the manufacturer himself in buildings, machinery, &c, to work up the whole annual product, would not perhaps exceed 45,000,000 dollars, or about one-fifth~bf that of the agriculturist. — New York Paper.

Destruction op Rats. — At a weekly council of the Royal Agricultural Society, held on Wednesday last week, the following communication was made by Dr, Ure, F. R. S., through Mr. Pusey, M.P.. on the mode of preparing an effective poison. In the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society there was published, several months ago, a prescription for preparing a poison for the above purpose, by an English gentleman residing in Germany. That preparation consisted essentially of phosphorus mixed with flour and sugar. It has been tried by a friend of mine in Derbyshire, who has a most extensive farm, and found to answer the purpose well ; but there is a great difficulty in preparing it, from the insolubility, and even immiscibility of phosphorus in water, attended with so little danger at first. The process I have found to succeed perfectly is as follows : — Melt hogs' lard in a bottle, plunged in water heated to about 150 deg. F.; introduce into it half an ounce of phosphorus for every pound of lard, then add a pint of proof spirit, or whiskey; cork the bottle firmly after the contents have been heated to 150 deg., taking it at the same time out of the water bath, and agitate smartly till the phosphorus becomes uniformly diffused, forming a milky-looking liquid. This mixture being evolved, with occasional agitation at first, will afford a white compound of phosphorus and lard, from which the spirit spontaneously separates, and may be poured off to be used again, for none of it enters into the combination ; but it merely serves to communicate the phosphorus, and to diffuse it in very small particles through the lard. This fatty compound, on being warmed very gently, may be poured out into a mixture of wheat flour and sugar incorporate therewith, and then flavoured with oil of rhodium or not at pleasure. The flavour may be varied with oil of aniseed, &c. This dough being made into pellets, is to be laid in rat-holes. By its luminousness in the dark, it attracts their notice, and being agreeable to their palates and noses, it is readily eaten, and proves certainly fatal ; they soon are seen issuing from their lurking-places, to seek for water to quenclvtheir burning thirst and bowels ; and they commonly die near the water. They continue to eat it as long as it is offered to them, without their being deterred by the fate of their fellows, as is known to be the case with arsenical doses. My friend in Derbyshire bought a pot of Mr. Meyers' rat-poison, and found it to be an analogous phosphoric preparation. The present mode of preparing it is the result of my own experiments, made with the view of diffusing phosphorus through a mass of flour and sugar, without the risk of fire.